Xavier University hosts a business conference focused on health, safety and the environment

Xavier is hosting a conference focusing on corporate responsibility for stewardship and sustainability.

The Economics of Stewardship and Sustainability: Health, Safety and the Environment 2010 Conference takes place on Thursday, Oct. 28, and Friday, Oct. 29, at Xavier’s Cintas Center. The conference is sponsored by the University’s Sedler Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation and the Campbell Institute. Cost is $250 per person. Register online at www.xavier.edu/williams.

The conference brings together researchers and practitioners who are presenting sessions that promote the ideas of Research to Practice (R2P). Companies working to achieve organizational sustainability face the challenge of how to measure each triple bottom line component: people, planet, and profit. The SEC and accounting regulations provide guidance for measuring accounting profit, but less help is offered to define and report metrics for human and natural capital.

The conference will help attendees gain awareness of the importance of organizational sustainability and value added by product safety; knowledge of current research and trends; access to tested models and metrics; understanding of how to move research into practice; effective reporting to stakeholders and consumers; connection between health-care decision making and effectiveness/efficiency; and the opportunity to network with peers and industry leaders.

The opening keynote speaker, John Howard, MD, is the director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Howard also is coordinator of the department's World Trade Center Health Programs.

Other speakers include the Rev. Michael J. Graham, S.J., president of Xavier University, Ali Malekzadeh, dean of Xavier’s Williams College of Business, and Robert Kohlhepp, chairman of Cintas Corporation and of Xavier’s Board of Trustees.